


Lost and Found

by shoyou100



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Eye Trauma, F/M, Masturbation, Psychological Trauma, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:15:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28037547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoyou100/pseuds/shoyou100
Summary: Back in a place he never thought he'd see again, Dimitri had been through hell and back, the last two years of his life a blur except for the day everything fell apart, still sharp as cut glass. Yet for the life of him, despite everything he'd been through, something still baffled him to no end.The curious-looking instructor who appeared one day without warning. Quiet and unconventional.His physics teacher, Byleth Eisner.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	1. Everything hurt

He awoke to the sight of blurry metal bars.

Everything hurt. His face, his chest, his head.

Ears ringing he tried to move and the room spiraled out of control forcing him to stay still as he struggled to gain his bearings. He groaned—or tried—and a pitiful croak came from his throat instead. The right side of his face hurt worst of all. 

Thankfully, the spinning of the room slowed to a manageable pace and he began to make sense of the concrete walls, aluminum toilet and bed, to come to several conclusions.

The first was that he had been thrown in a cell. The metal bars should have given it away but the beating he’d taken—and given one— had rung him bad enough to leave him concussed. The second was that he had fallen off the metal bed and now lay sprawled on the floor. The third…

Something warm trickled over his lip and he wiped at it only for more to take its place. He followed the trail up, higher and higher until— his fingers made contact with gauze, then tape.

The third conclusion was that he could only see out of one eye.

A door burst open from somewhere close by. Then an echoing voice punctuated by brisk, but solid steps filled him all at once with near unbearable familiarity.

And dread.

“—needs is medical attention! You should have brought him to a hospital not throw him in a goddamn cell. I don’t care if he didn’t have any ID he could be dying of blood loss right now for gods sake.” Slower, hesitant footsteps trailed those frantic ones, a sense of heavy clumsiness.

The image of an older officer, mustache laced with white and a bulging stomach, rose from a muddled pool of memory. But they weren’t the only ones to arise.

Stepping, moving, the sound of those footsteps brought along with it the memories of nearly two years past. A past that then carried with it a boiling anger that despite the pain in his head, despite the apparent woundedness of his eye, his teeth ground together and his fists and eyes clenched in holding back the scream of rage threatening to tear through his already ruined throat.

Memories that with every step grew sharper and clearer until he had both his hands clutching the back of his head, forearms covering his face, and the footsteps came to an abrupt halt.

He heard a harsh intake of breath.

His heart picked up to a thundering pace, his right eye throbbing. His fingers twisted so tight into his hair that he felt a few pops as he tore a few out by the roots, easy as they were to pull out as he hadn’t had a proper shower in weeks.

Silence persisted even as he waited— what was he waiting for?

He thought he knew but as he clutched at himself from his pathetic position on the floor, head pounding, body battered and sore, he couldn’t for the life of him think of an answer.

Then he heard the whisper of a name he hadn’t heard for years. A name he had tried to throw away like everything else related to that part of his life. A name he had come to associate with helplessness and weakness and shame which struck him as ironic as they all seemed to describe how he felt right at this moment.

“Dimitri.”

For the first time since the footsteps had stopped, he let go of his head and looked up towards the voice.

Other than the exhaustion lining his face, the man standing before him looked the same as he always had. Handsome. Put-together. Wise. Everything he wasn’t. A father figure in place of the one he had lost so long ago. So, so long ago.

He didn’t know what kind of expression he had on his face right now, but whatever he did it was enough to evoke pity.

From the last person on earth he wanted to see.

“R-Rodrigue—” was all he managed to say.

Then the slow, persistent crawl of the room that had been swimming at the edges of his vision swung into motion at full force before he could say another word. The world flickered out as his good eye rolled to the back of his head and every word he could have said next blanked out from his consciousness as his body finally gave in to its injuries.

Later in the hospital he would learn that the reason had been a mixture of blood loss and a sudden hike in blood pressure. None of those things would be surprising.

After all, he had spent the better part of two years convincing Rodrigue he was dead.

* * *

The white paint of the curious trifecta design representing the Grand Academy had begun flaking off the glass of the half-open door leading to a lecture hall.

He remembered when the paint had been brand new.

Standing rigid at the entryway of a class he had already taken once before with trimmed hair, scrubbed clean, tied back to keep the strays from his face, and dressed in clothes Rodrigue had picked out for him to where he would need to look down at himself to remember what he’d put on, a cold sweat broke out on his skin.

He considered dropping his leather book bag to the floor, turning around, and leaving it all behind a second time.

Grand Academy. The greatest university to exist in the city and home to some of the best and worst times of his life.

Well over a year since he last walked its once pristine marble floors now dusty from the severe reduction in staffing in which he knew all too well where the funding had gone, those he knew best were no longer here. People he had developed an unshakeable rapport with over the course of several years, all gone.

Nothing and everything looked the same, with just enough differences to bring back a lingering past, a destabilizing sense of strangeness that twisted him in all the wrong ways. And here he remained, stuck in the middle. Looking at a world through eyes half-blind.

If he left now before anything started, before he got in too deep...

As his thoughts churned away, the toe of his brand new dress shoes inched towards the double doors leading to the entryway. A part of him started feeling sick.

The weakness in him would win. It would win and then he would disappear from everyone’s lives all over again before anyone could be the wiser.

Then a disgruntled sigh came from behind him. 

Dimitri went still. As did his thoughts. 

Then he turned and looked down to find a skinny, put-upon man glaring up at him in a way that could only be described as mild.

His red hair looked borderline orange in the daylight filtering through the windows.

“Hey blondie, you goin’ in or what?” A sucker in his mouth with an attitude to match, he raised a brow when Dimitri didn't react. 

“Hey! I asked you a question.” The red-head waved a hand in his face, glancing right over Dimitri's most distinguishing feature, the stiff patch strapped over his right eye. 

Without a word, Dimitri stepped aside to let the smaller man pass by, curious as to what he would do next. 

“Hmph, about time,” the red-head groused. Then, just before crossing the threshold, the man paused. Then turned. “Name’s Gaius by the way. Just Gaius.” He looked him in the eye. “And don’t you forget it." Then he marched away.

Dimitri heard shuffling beside him and realized there had been someone else there.

A meeker student stepped into sight, pale-haired and hunching his shoulders somewhat to seem as unassuming as possible.

“I’m sorry about… you know…” He tilted his head towards his counterpart.

The kindness in his eyes made Dimitri uncomfortable. 

“He’s always like that. With everyone. I’m Robin by the way. We’re one of the few freshmen in the class since we all managed to get on an accelerated track. You…" Here the younger man trailed off as his gaze lingered over Dimitri's eye.

“You don’t look like a junior so… I’m guessing a senior then? I haven’t seen you around before…” He gave an awkward grin, fingers worrying at his bag straps. He wore a satchel-like one. 

Dimitri used to wear one just like it years ago, in fact he had one pulled around his shoulder right now. The fresh leather digging into his clothes, his skin, as he stood there, here. In this very same hall where it all happened so long ago. Or was it just yesterday? It was so clear. Clearer than day. 

Sweat dripped down his brow, but Dimitri didn't move to wipe at it. He felt frozen in place. 

Then came the concerned voice and it seemed to snap him out of it. "You okay?"

Dimitri broke eye contact, lip curling from frustration at the effort it now took just to engage with other people. 

"I'm fine." He muttered, with a brusqueness that would have intimidated any other, but was answered with a gentle nod.

Ending the conversation, Dimitri broke away for the lecture hall, leaving the other student behind. He could feel considering eyes against his back. 

Today was shaping up to be a long day. 

Rodrigue had certainly been right about one thing when he re-enrolled his surrogate son back into his old major.

He would meet some very interesting people.

The first thing Gaius did after sitting down in the middle-most seat of the entire room was place his head down on the miniature desk built into the arm of the standard chair and go to sleep, sucker in mouth.

Robin bee-lined for a dark-haired man sitting in the same row, someone who must have come in even earlier than the early ones. 

The entire hall spread out before him from his chosen place near the back and, before long, whispers filtered in through a numb focus that settled over Dimitri's mind as more students filed in, some voices registering with vague familiarity while others slipped past without a thought. Whether he recognized them or not, however, he could feel every one of their gazes on him as they entered. Crawling.

But Dimitri had made a promise. 

He would undergo the humiliation, do it for Rodrigue's sake, and bite back the fear and the nausea. He would fulfill the pity-filled request Rodrigue despite Dimitri’s best efforts to convince him otherwise. He would do it because it seemed some sick part of him still desired to return when Rodrigue insisted that he go back to finish his education.

What did he expect coming back here? Dimitri wondered. Why?

The reason for his return, the word that embodied it, leaned against the tip of his tongue, so precarious that he almost dared not speak or even think it. That it was better to let the feeling settle back beneath the unconscious where it was safer. 

That feeling that had dogged him in the very beginning when it all happened and thought lost when he learned it was well and truly over.

Hope.

* * *

The days passed without incident, much to both his and Rodrigue’s surprise whose tone said as much during their weekly check-ins.

“Just to make sure.” Rodrigue had said when he first proposed such an arrangement to which Dimitri had said nothing, only gripped the phone a little tighter, testing the metal.

But a certain event would occur to shake up the strange peace in his life for, as it turned out, the wizened, stooped instructor that had been teaching them physics for the past month and a half had actually been a substitute.

He himself would not notice the return of their actual physics teacher until he heard his name called for the first time in the lecture hall.

“Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.”

Gaze so accustomed to fastening itself to his notebook that would stay mostly blank for the majority of the class, he hadn’t noticed someone taking roll for the first time.

His eye flicked up at whoever had called for him, surprise jolting him ever so much at the way his full name sounded coming from someone else.

What greeted him took him aback.

Round, oversized glasses perched on a delicate nose. Her face could have been heart-shaped but it was almost impossible to tell from behind the lenses, her expression further hidden by illumination from the overhead lights. A frizzy, horizontally striped sweater of soft pastel swathed her body in a shapeless mass. Dark hair framed her glasses and throat, ending a little ways past her shoulders.

She was remarkable but in a most unremarkable kind of way.

She repeated his name, “Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.”

She sounded almost… bored. 

“Here.” His voice carried across the room and the instructor marked off his name without even looking up.

Dimitri surprised himself when a slight relief pulled at him. Perhaps it was one less curious look he had to contend with, one less person boring into him with searching eyes. Just another body in the classroom.

She continued reading down the line, not even looking up when someone didn’t answer which in the case of Gaius still had Robin shaking his shoulder several times. The dark-haired man beside them eyed Gaius with exasperation. Dimitri still hadn’t learned his name.

“Wh-wha? What?” Gaius muttered groggily to which his classmates on either side of him sighed.

The instructor read on, in a diligence that left Dimitri somewhat impressed. By the end of the first half of class she had called out all one hundred names of the students in the lecture hall.

Then she finally began her instruction, ended the class late— to which no student could manage to successfully signal that this was the case— then packed up and left before anyone else could exit the room.

By the time Dimitri himself had reached the door, students around him abuzz with dissatisfaction at the changes the teacher brought along with her sudden appearance, he realized something.

She never told anyone her name.


	2. Your smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, sorry guys, my fingers slipped and this turned explicit.

It became a little easier to walk through the university gates each morning.

Dimitri told Rodrigue as much over dinner, surrounded by a mansion-like home perched on a hill overlooking the city.

The meal had been eaten outside in relative quietness, overseen by the stars and immersed in silence save the faint chirping of cicadas in the surrounding bushes, sounds foreign to life in the city.

Dimitri had forgotten how much he enjoyed the sound.

“I’m glad to hear.” Rodrigue had replied. “You’ve always been a good student.”

“Hm.”

The daily passing of the gates had become a ritual of sorts, each time he did so a confirmation that he could, that he was allowed to. That there would be no consequences for his existence.

“Now we just need to do something about your smile.”

“What do you mean?” Dimitri had asked, eye glancing up from his meal.

“Exactly.” Rodrigue said, then winked.

They finished eating in the notable softness of the night and Dimitri wondered if he might finish out his final year at Grand Academy without incident, in line with the other man’s hopes.

Such a thing now seemed possible.

* * *

As Dimitri immersed himself once more into a life of academia, listening to lectures with a more attentive ear, taking notes more often than not, he recognized a growing issue.

His eyesight was beginning to pose a problem.

When he read from too far away, the words would swim, shifting in eddies across the boards, caused perhaps from holding his breath so he could focus. If he read too closely, a common occurrence with textbooks, he might develop a migraine. One that beat steadily and unrelenting against his temple.

The worst of it occurred when reading the scribblings of a particular instructor, part of his pain self-imposed from his choice of seating, but the discomfort still undeniable.

Words proved difficult, but equations proved worse.

And then, for the first time in his academic career, Dimitri failed a graded event.

* * *

Class ended that day like any other, which was to say with confusion and uncertainty as the lecture hall filled with the sound of uneven shuffling.

On the large desk at the front of the room, a hundred nondescript papers lay in a messy stack, organized without rhyme or reason. Perplexed students had already begun making their way down to the site, their instructor already spirited away as she was wont to do.

Behind the desk lay the white boards, their surfaces swarmed with curls and curves.

Sore, Dimitri closed his eye against the sight.

The class began parsing through the stack, paper sliding, grating. His heart began pounding his temples with its tempo.

The first few students to see their grades groaned.

“You gotta be sh—— me.” Someone hissed aloud followed by the dull slap of a hand and then the same voice. “Owch!”

Dimitri massaged the skin, despite the futility. Anything to ease the pain while he waited in his seat.

As the remainder of the students filed out, along with their muttering complaints, he stood. Only a few sheets left on the desk. Dimitri was several arm lengths away when someone spoke up.

“Here.”

The dark-haired freshman held a quiz out to him. Dimitri had seen him around often enough to know.

“I’m Chrom. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Despite the serious set of his mouth and chin, he smiled with unexpected warmth. Professional and friendly. The name was unfamiliar, but the emblem sewn into his sweater prickled at Dimitri’s memory. A cup encircling a tear.

Dimitri took the paper from him without a word.

“If I had to guess,” Chrom said, shifting a hand on to his hip. “I’d say you’re a senior.” Then he nodded at the quiz in his hands.

The grade scribbled in the top right gave Dimitri pause.

“What you do is your own prerogative, but you’re welcome to study with us anytime.”

There wasn’t a trace of embarrassment in his face as he alluded to reading Dimitri’s score. But perhaps that was to be expected as memory finally linked Dimitri to the unique symbol.

Tying him to private security.

“Gaius is in the same boat.” Chrom said, hand falling back to his side and the unassuming movement stretched his clothes enough to hint towards the developed muscle underneath. He continued smiling at him without ill will. Dimitri felt comfortable enough around him. The last time he trusted someone based off such notions, however, he lost everyone he ever loved.

The air between them chilled considerably.

Chrom looked towards the scattered papers on the desk. He sensed the turn in conversation. “Whoever didn’t show today I suppose.” He remarked. “We should probably return them.” And stared at the desk for a beat too long, unspoken questions playing behind his expression.

Dimitri didn’t have the desire to answer any.

“Like I said, you’re welcome to join us. Anytime.”

The offer floated like a fresh bloom between them, but it withered in the silence that followed.

Chrom made an awkward turn as if he had more to say. Then he seemed to come to a decision and nodded, giving Dimitri one last considering look before departing.

Alone again in the belated quiet, Dimitri found himself gazing upon the desk. He knew where the faculty resided. He had visited there once or twice for questions, extra credit, anything that would satisfy the brimming determination he carried at the time to be the greatest version of himself he could ever be. Those teachers then came to know his face rather well. But would any of them recognize him now?

Dimitri had the quizzes gathered between his hands, neat and uniform, before his mind could question it any further and left.

Dimitri mistook her office for a maintenance room on his first pass through of the second floor.

He found the gold-trimmed placard in the wall, wedged between the main offices and regular classrooms. It still had the name of the substitute engraved.

He knocked and no one answered. Anyone else and they might’ve slid the papers under the door, but Dimitri kept them in hand, stayed by the inevitable question.

Who was she?

Dimitri tried the knob, twisting, expecting the catch. But none came and the door clipped open.

He entered a small sitting area.

A cloth loveseat and mini coffee table took up the center, an end table tucked into the corner with a coffeemaker resting on top.

Dimitri closed the door behind him, the wood sliding shut with a metallic click. 

The room opened into another one and here Dimitri came upon the actual office. A desk and several cabinets outfitted the space, cramped even with its bareness. The desk had countless papers strewn across, as disorganized as the quizzes back in the lecture hall.

There wasn’t anything, Dimitri realized, personal in the room save the bare essentials needed for work. Then a gilded edge beneath the mess caught his eye.

Golden filigreed paper, a sight so familiar that, before he even knew what he was doing, he had half of it pulled out by the corner.

A diploma.

He stared at the emblazoned words there, the proof of her qualifications as a teacher and the year she graduated. And the reason for its familiarity.

She had been a senior here when he first entered the academy.

He heard someone come up behind him. Dimitri turned, rustling several papers to the floor as he did. He clutched the quizzes in his hand like a schoolboy caught red-handed. 

In the doorway stood his instructor. Beneath the unwieldy glasses, her lips rounded into a silent ‘o’ as she spied the items in his possession.

Flustered, he fumbled some sort of apology.

“There they are.” She said, speaking past his attempt, nonchalant. Then she closed the distance without warning, head just short of grazing his chin.

He smelled something sweet, drawing his head forward, leaning him in to discover the scent until the feel of her against him made him snap to.

Her hands— so small against his, whispering against the skin— extracted the contents from his grip. “Thanks.”

He felt her breath against his collarbone as she said this, the hairs rising on his neck.

Then she continued past him and, within several steps, had her pen scratching against paper and by the time Dimitri turned around she had already settled into her desk. Her head down and glasses leaning precarious against the tip of her nose, dark, messy hair tickling the pages. In her classic pastel.

She had dismissed him. In sight yet somehow out of mind despite his continued presence in her simple, almost dinghy office.

Dimitri paused when he reached the doorway she just came from. He still had the sweetness in his nose. Typical and unique all at once. Like lavender. 

“You’re welcome.” He murmured, peering at her immersed form. She continued scribbling away.

“Ms. Eisner.”

Dimitri made his departure, but not before— from the corner of his eye— she glanced up.

* * *

Three familiar people seated around a single table, greeted him in the study room when Dimitri entered. Several similar rooms littered the school grounds, but this one the least used. It seemed, however, he had come too late. 

Dimitri turned to leave.

“Wait.”

And he paused, hand still on the door.

The one facing him, named after a bird, had called after him.

“Robin, it’s fine.” Beside him, Chrom laid a hand on his shoulder. It was enough to cover the skin there entirely. “Let him go.”

Robin shook his head. Then said, “Dimitri, right?” He looked determined. “Let’s study for the mid-term together.”

The last member of the group, the mouthy red-head, watched on with nothing short of amusement, elbow tucked over the back of his seat.

These freshmen just wouldn’t give up. What made them keep reaching out to him over and over again?

“Why are you doing this?” Dimitri asked. He searched their faces for answers and was met with a raised brow and a sincere gaze. Another of resignation.

“Because we don’t belong.” Gaius said, the last one Dimitri expected to speak. “And neither do you.”

“Gaius!” Robin snapped at him, but his classmate continued on.

“Come on, blondie. Look at us. You ever wonder why we’re in an accelerated track and nobody else? It’s not because we’re geniuses, well… at least I’m not.” He added, glancing at the two others behind him. “We’re transfers, don’t know anybody here. All of us should be sophomores by now, but we bit the bullet and came here instead.”

“Why?” Dimitri asked. The next logical question.

“It’s a long story, Dimitri.” Chrom said, looking weary as he did. “Come sit down,” He gestured to the open seat across from him. “Please. We can talk more when you do.”

Transfers from another university, connections to the security sector, pieces fell into place. Pieces to a puzzle he didn’t know existed.

Dimitri joined them at the table and, like another piece that had fallen into place, so he became part of the pervading truth that bound them together.

“It began when they intercepted our university funds.”

He spoke as if Dimitri were already in the know, watching him with a recognition that hadn’t existed before.

“They did it over a period of time. First they gutted the extracurricular programs, then moved to the larger ones. Until one day we realized our majors no longer met the standard for certification in the city.”

“We didn’t just sit on our asses, by the way.” Gaius interjected. “We tracked them down after the jig was up.”

Chrom nodded. “It was traced to a company that grew several times in worth overnight. Born from a merger.”

All eyes shifted to Dimitri and he grit his teeth, refusing the stop the conversation from reaching rightful completion.

“The merger between Eagle and Lions incorporated after two executives disappeared overnight.”

“So are you here for revenge?” Dimitri asked, his voice strained even to his own ears.

The abyss yawned before him, before all of them. Would they descend? Was it going to start all over again? He didn’t know his hand was shaking until he moved to grip the bottom of his chair, to steady himself in a world too small for its own good.

“I’m sorry, Dimitri,” Chrom said, true sincerity in his voice. “For the loss of your father. But we aren’t here for that.”

“We’re just here for our education like you.” Robin said. “But you’re not alone, not anymore.”

“You’re one of us now.” Gaius agreed.

Dimitri had to turn away, unable to believe his own ears, overwhelmed. But, deep down, he knew what they said to be true. He believed them.

“Welcome to our study group.”

* * *

Dimitri took to palming his painkillers during the worst of his migraines.

They had grown in intensity and length as time had passed.

He would roll the capsule between his fingers and squeeze, stopping just shy of crushing, the anticipation of relief almost as potent as the real thing. The pills remedied the pain as the days took on a surreal note.

He had unearthed a piece of the past.

It layered his surroundings in calls to memory. The laughter of friends and a love long past echoed the halls of his memories, the nooks and crannies of a school he had returned to after so much time away. And deeper beneath that, in the academy halls and classrooms, lay years of his bloodline, his own family history embedded deep.

He drifted like a ship unmoored.

Then, on the day of the physics midterm, Dimitri forgot to take the pill in his hand.

The lecture hall that day had been filled with nothing but the rapid scratches of numerous pens and pencils on paper. Students were free to leave once they were done. One by one the sound of pencils and pens decreased. He had been the very last to finish.

Dimitri clacked down his pencil in completion. Frustration. The equations swam especially worse today.

He just wanted to go home.

Dimitri rose, seat scraping louder than usual in the empty room, and made his way to the front. To where his instructor sat immersed in her work.

Again, she had her head leaned towards her notebook— research or study Dimitri couldn’t tell— nose almost to the desk. She wore something different today. A loose blouse, billowy and delicate along her shoulders. It reminded him of their startling closeness in age.

He dropped the test off on the large stack already before her.

She didn’t move to look up at him, not even when he stood there. Watching, for a reaction of any kind.

Perhaps it was the migraine. Or the layered memories haunting Dimitri’s every step. But all of a sudden irritation struck him and he wanted nothing more than to reach out and push away her glasses.

“Ms. Eisner.”

She tilted her head slightly towards him as if she thought she heard him.

“I’m done.”

The scribbling continued as she remained drawn to whatever she seemed to be taking notes on. Dimitri wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. He was part way to the door when she finally spoke.

“Does it still hurt?”

Dimitri halted in confusion and surprise. Had the pain been that obvious? As he turned to engage her, a wariness settled in his heart. She was unpredictable.

Between her index finger and thumb rested one of his capsules.

Dimitri flinched, his hand twitching as he realized the pill was no longer there.

She held it by her face like a specimen. Judging by the tilt of her chin and head, however, she seemed to be looking towards him. Inquiring and curious.

When he didn’t answer, she didn’t repeat herself. Not exactly. Instead, she turned over the quiz he just turned in, picked it up with the equations facing him. Then she pointed at the contents and asked, “Does it hurt you to read this?”

“No.” He sounded choked. A lie.

“Okay.” She placed the quiz back down, then stood up.

And started walking straight towards him.

Dimitri froze in place like she had held him down, trapped until she was close enough to raise her hand between them— less than a breath apart— the pill between her fingers.

Her blouse rested close to her shoulder, skin creamy and smooth. Dimitri tried to look away, stay focused on her face, the dark of her hair, almost a deep emerald in the light. And then it slipped.

He saw it all. The curve of her breasts, the swell of the mounds, pressing into the light fabric holding them in place, outlining the material.

She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

His ears sucked in with a loud roaring as he forced a low, harsh breath. He could feel her own breathing against him. Repeating. Speaking.

“I didn’t…” His voice sounded hoarse. “What did you say?” He was close enough to see her lashes. Close enough to an edge he never knew was there before.

“I’m sorry for making you hurt.” She replied, expression hidden behind the expanse of rounded glass.

Then she reached out and, for a second, he thought she was going to cradle his face. But she reached down instead, cupping his hand with her own, and raised it between them.

“But now I know.”

She pressed the pill into his hand. Then her lips curved into the beginnings of a smile.

He returned to his apartment, hands and face chilled from winter. Somewhere inside him raw and exposed.

The ghost of her palm was still on his fingers. He had the sensations trapped deep in his chest, his blood still thudding in his ears.

Who in the world was she?

He threw his bag against a moth-eaten couch and wrenched off his layers, stripping down until he could feel the cool air against every part of him. Then he pushed into the bathroom and soon the sound of running water filled the air. Steam filled the room and misted over the mirror.

Nothing she did made any sense.

He stepped inside the standing shower. Water first ran in rivulets down his skin and then a cascade, stinging his pale skin with its heat, soothing the muscles. 

He couldn’t get the images out of his head.

Dimitri pressed his forearms into the cold tile below the showerhead. He leaned into the stone, head down, forcing himself to face the truth.

His arousal, swollen and red, leaned against the inside of his thigh, almost entirely erect. The undeniable truth.

Her breasts had been so full and thick against the fabric, the buds all but visible. Available. Like he could reach up and pinch her through the material and she would feel it as a heat in her—

He had himself in his hand before he could stop himself.

This was sick.

But his erection throbbed, insistent and insane. He was insane. He was—

Mouthing into the cream of her skin and bruising the flesh, cupping her ample breast into his hand. Pushing her backwards into the desk, scattering the papers, crushing them, sliding his hand beneath her thigh and pressing himself against her promising warmth. Sex. He wanted to have her sex and everything that came with it.

He was sick.

As he continued pleasuring himself, his low, harsh breaths drowned out by the rushing water, his thoughts began to devolve. To lose identity, a faceless woman from a vague fantasy replacing the one that had sparked his madness. Now he was only finishing the act, conjuring whatever he needed to bring himself to completion.

But he liked the way she’d smiled. He wanted her to do it for him again.

The room filled with filthy, jerking gasps as he came to that final thought, covering his hands in undeserved desire.

The water washed away the last of the proof when Dimitri cut off the flow. The drain suctioned away the remainder and the showerhead emitting the last of its water with the occasional drip. He shut his eyes, forehead on the tile, and stilled with a sort of catharsis, sated in a way he hadn’t been for a long time.

They had been classmates once.

Dimitri exhaled his helplessness with a chuckle.

The gods had an awful sense of humor. How many times had they shared the same teacher? The same classrooms?

His wet, naked skin began to chill in the uneven heating, cooling the fervor that had made him lose his mind.

He had done wrong, had thoughts about a woman he didn’t know. A woman who didn’t know him in return, who wouldn’t know about the way he used her to satiate himself.

Dimitri wondered about the color of her eyes.

Would that end the madness? The revealing of the unknown, the peeling of the layers until all truth laid bare before him. Dimitri well and truly did not know. But he needed to stop. End things now before wading any deeper, from involving someone else with the man he had become. Yet, despite the warnings, despite the state of his being.

Dimitri wanted to see her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of us deserve the chance for love. 
> 
> Merry Christmas, everyone.


End file.
